Heathkit Electronics Workshop

The electronics kit that started my interest in radio

This item
from Heathkit got me started in electronics
and radio. If I recall correctly, it was first
sold in the UK by Heathkit Daystrom in late
1961 just in time for Christmas. My father saw
it advertised in a DIY magazine and asked if
I'd like it. Having said, "yes" it was ordered
and arrived in time for Christmas that
year.

I remembered the
kit as the EW-1 but I have recently seen it on
eBay called the SK50 and the JK-27. These may
all have been variations on the same concept
or different names for sales in the USA and
elsewhere? It may just be that I cannot
remember!

The electronics
workshop consisted of a large white baseboard
into which a number of components were
attached by screws. Also on the panel were a
loudspeaker, a relay, a crystal earpiece,
a crude morse key and a slug-tuned inductor
with a tuning knob attached.

With the
workshop around 25 circuits could be built by
following the instructions and joining up the
appropriate connectors.As I recall there were
simple morse oscillators, sme basic MW
receivers, a simple speech transmitter (using
the crystal earpiece with an attached paper
cone as the mic!), an intercom and some
relay controlled odds and ends.

It was the radio
receiver that got me going as a shortwave
listener, well medium wave listener to start
with. That Christmas I was already starting to
find out what stations I could pick up apart
from the local BBC station a few miles away. I
was amazed to find I could hear stations all
over Europe as far as the middle east.

It kick-started
several things. Firstly an interest in
electronics and shortwave listening. This in
turn led to an interest in amateur radio and
my eventual licence and morse test pass. This
interest turned into a degree in electronics
which led to a career in mobile radio design.
I am still doing this some 36 years later and
some 45 years after that first Heathkit!
These days I find I can remember less
and less technically - I blame it on age - but
I still find radio electronics as fascinating
as at the time I first explored it with one of
these Heathkit workshops.